


just don't know when to die

by Hnybnny



Category: AdventureQuest Worlds, Artix Entertainment
Genre: Gen, It's Not Gay If Dage Is There, only a lil bit of implied gay in the first bit i promise, otherwise Tons of Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-03 18:24:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10254395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hnybnny/pseuds/Hnybnny
Summary: A series of small ficlets regarding the world of Lore and its hero, in the events during and after the 13th Lord of Chaos... since the existing story and plot left much to be desired.Works will touch on Xan's cryomancy, the literal death of the hero and their godliness, the destruction of Battleon and other communities during World War Lore, and more. If you have any requests, please do let me know!





	1. iris for valor

A worn metal boot digs aimlessly into the dirt, dirtying the already dusty crimson sheen (there really is no purpose in keeping it polished anymore, no  _ time _ .) Footsteps crunch but Gravelyn doesn’t look up from where she is gazing-  _ mourning _ , perhaps being a more apt term- at a makeshift shrine of stone, topped with the shards of a broken weapon, once mighty, with scattered flowers around the base. A few dark roses and orchids, wolfsbane, a couple sprigs of nightshade- Plants only placed around a grave if said grave is in Skullholme.

Not a grave. A memorial, Gravelyn reminds herself silently. There is no body, no trace of them left on this plane. Not found so far, anyways.

Dage’s hulking shadow looms over her shoulder and she sighs, crouching down to place a flower of her own on the ground in front of the stone ( _ salvaged from Battleon _ , the minion told her- she wants to believe it.) A pale purple iris, signifying  _ hope _ and  _ cherished friendship _ . And valor, that voice in the back of her mind adds softly. The woman stands up straight, still not acknowledging her second-in-command. She wishes it was her  _ champion _ standing there and not him.

He coughs awkwardly (he doesn’t even have lungs, yet how  _ can he _ -) and Gravelyn turns slightly. The undead lord bows and addresses her as ‘empress’, tells her of recent advancements in the…  _ debacle _ with the Mother of all Monsters. Parts of Yokai have dropped off into the sea, the cracks in the land are growing larger by the hour it seems, one such fault has split Dwarfhold Mountain- all of these do not surprise Gravelyn, and Dage trails off as he senses disinterest, her thoughts obviously elsewhere. A pause. She asks if there has been any activity on Doomskull. What she means is,  _ have  _ they _ come back yet _ . That hellish portal still sits there, a swirling abyss of purple and black. Nothing can go in. And no one has yet to come out. He responds in the negative, as he has every day for the last few weeks. She slumps, barely noticeable.

She asks if there’s anything else, and Dage hesitates. A potentially ally, he says, sounding…  _ apprehensive _ . That is a first, Gravelyn duly notes. She impatiently asks what is the deal with them, then, if they are only a  _ potential _ against the most powerful being on Lore at that moment?

He’s extremely unstable, volatile and violent. A wild card (but that’s just what we need right now, Gravelyn wants to interject) whose trust cannot be kept. But…. Gravelyn grows more impatient, demands her inferior to  _ cut to the chase already _ . Dage huffs.

It’s  _ Xan _ , he says. And Gravelyn stiffens. He had gone missing, right off the map just before the 13th Chaos Lord arose. He had lost his fire powers, though- the Archmage Warlic had made sure of that, hadn’t he? Dage shakes his head, the skulls on his helmet quietly rattling. He lost his fire, but gained something else. He’s now the most powerful cryomancer on the continent, if not the planet. Inversion is a funny thing, is what Dage was told, and he knew better than to question this turn of events.

Xan says he owes  _ them _ a favor. Their name is left unspoken (as it has been since they dipped into that portal) but both know who Xan is referring to. Then why is he wishing to ally with the Shadowscythe, Gravelyn asks cautiously- because since  _ they _ are not around to call in the favor, he thought it’d be best to offer it one of their closest friends, and that’d he be better welcomed among fellow bone-heads than in the company of  _ paladins _ .

The Alliance between Good and Evil had shattered along with the continent, and frankly Gravelyn would much rather be with the unpredictable mage than against him, so she does not hesitate in having a message sent back to him.

Soon enough the Shadowsycthe forces are slightly stronger against those of the Mother, but it goes unspoken in the halls of Shadowfall that it’s still not enough, could not possibly be enough.

And Empress Gravelyn knows it just as much as everyone else, as she hopes that her silent pleas might reach the Hero, _her friend_ , wherever they are…


	2. death followed

They stand in front of the bureau mirror, fingers tugging at the lower lid of the left eye, tinged purple from sleep deprivation. Swallowing hard they stare at the thin tendrils of black seeping into the sclera, branching out till they reached the pupil (they ignored in it the tint of  _ red. _ ) Uneasiness rested deep in their gut, even if they knew exactly why this was happening. No sickness, no disease, no curse was possibly the cause… no.

They, the Hero of Lore, were  _ dead _ .

Their other hand braced against the hard oakwood, the other drifted down to a scar-littered bare chest, where the most prominent feature was a  _ giant gaping hole _ .

A hole where their soul (and their heart, and quite a bit of flesh for that matter) used to be, until Drakath reached in and just… tore it out. Killing them instantaneously. Ah, good times,  _ good times _ . Calloused fingers grazed over the scar tissue surrounding the wound, then against broken ribs and what remained of their sternum. The hero tried to ignore the fact that their bones were slowly turning dark yellow-grey, like the rest of the undead around Shadowfall. They could say that now, couldn’t they? They were undead, just like so many creatures that had fell before their blade. They were dead… Dead  _ tired _ , honestly.

Artix would get a kick out of that, they thought as they chuckled at their own internal monologue. 

_ If he’s still alive, that is. _

Ah.  _ There _ was that voice. Always there at the back of their head, sinister and scheming. It wasn’t imagined, no- Reens had said that it must be a sort of… mental after-effect of their Chaos possession. Like the little devil on one’s shoulder, except that it was always there and there was  _ no _ angel. Chaos wasn’t a concept like good, or evil. It was a  _ thing _ . An unseeable being coiled in the ley lines of Lore, always waiting for someone to just reach out and touch it, to use it to their own ends- be that good or evil. 

Unfortunately, Drakath chose the latter and  _ that _ is what the hero had been tainted with, along with the rest of the planet. There was too many nights where they would wake up in a cold sweat, mind teeming with the leftover nightmares of writing tentacles and the screams of their friends as they were cut down like  _ livestock _ .

Suddenly feeling extremely self-conscious about their scars (many of them fresh, inflicted by fellow heroes), they reached for the tunic draped across the back of a nearby chair and pulled it on, but not before taking a deep breath ( _ unneeded, perhaps _ ) and watching their lungs deflate.

They may not be alive in the technical sense, but they were sure as hell  _ still kicking _ . Would take more than a trip to Death’s realm to change  _ that _ .


End file.
